


Wake up, sleepy head

by SpicySnowflake



Series: Spicy's Whumptober 2020 [23]
Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Exhaustion, F/M, Whumptober, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:42:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27161995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpicySnowflake/pseuds/SpicySnowflake
Summary: Dib was exhausted and fell asleep in class. Gretchen decided to take a chance.
Relationships: Dib/Gretchen (Invader Zim)
Series: Spicy's Whumptober 2020 [23]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948723
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12





	Wake up, sleepy head

**Author's Note:**

> Day 23 of Whumptober! This is my fic for it ^-^

Ms. Bitters was in a surprisingly good mood in which she ignored whatever her students were doing so long as they kept quiet and didn’t disrupt her from her regular sermon about DOOM. Which was a very good thing for Dib, who, for the life of him, could not keep his eyes open, much less keep his head off his desk. 

He’d had another long night, keeping an eye on Zim (and finishing homework he had been putting off). Usually, this wouldn’t have been a big deal. He was used to getting little, if not no sleep, and still be fully functional the next day. He had trained his body to be able to handle sleep deprivation, and having insomnia only helped. 

However, it seemed his exhaustion finally caught up with him and his body was forcing him to finally rest. So there he was, sitting in the front row of the classroom, completely knocked out while Miss Bitters droned on about DOOM. 

Finally, the bell rang, signalling the end of school. Everybody suddenly perked up and hurried to get out of class; shoving others on their way to the door, some even jumped out the window. Gretchen, who made a habit of secretly watching Dib and making sure to at least catch a glimpse of him during this part of the day, had noticed that he still hadn’t gotten up from his seat. 

A spark of giddiness and hope settled into her gut, and she decided to try her luck and stayed behind, waiting for everyone to leave. When only Gretchen and her sleeping crush were left in the room, she got up from her seat and made her way over to the boy. Her nervousness increased with each passing step, until finally, she was standing right by his desk. 

Gretchen, still nervous about what she had decided to do, took the time to really look at his features. He really was quite the handsome boy, even with his too-thick glasses that covered half of his face and made it really hard to distinguish his eye colour (she thought it was brown but she could be wrong). It was the first time she really got a chance to just watch him without the fear of other people seeing and making fun of her for it. 

She was already shoved into the reject’s table in the cafeteria, and her extreme overbite and braces already made her the target of many bullies. It would only get worse if people found out she liked the boy that was collectively deemed as even more of a loser than her. 

Sometimes, she would feel guilty for pretending to laugh along with their classmates making fun of him, but it wasn’t like Dib ever noticed her. He never noticed her when she laughed along with their peers. Just like he didn’t notice her when she didn’t laugh along with the others those few times after she first formed a crush on him. Their other classmates did though, and she did what she had to to not be faced with even more ridicule. 

What was the point in putting herself in the spotlight if the boy she would have done it for wouldn’t even take notice?

Dib was still fast asleep and Gretchen had been standing there staring at him long enough that it could be considered creepy. She considered walking away, of backing out and pretending nothing ever happened. She could just go back to secretly catching glimpses of him while pretending that she thought of him the same way everyone else did. 

But Gretchen was tired of secretly pining over him. She was exhausted of pretending that she didn’t like the guy who never even gave her a second glance. At the very least, she should try to get him to notice her. (that one time on Valentine’s Day didn’t count, and as much as seeing him give one of the Valentine’s Meat she gave him to that new girl hurt, she consoled herself that he was too focused on Ms. Bitters to notice her put them on his desk.) She should at least try talking to him. It was a great opportunity she couldn’t pass up, where there was nobody to witness and ridicule her. 

Gretchen shook him by the shoulder. “Hey, wake up, sleepy head. School’s over.”


End file.
